Alexander Griboyedov. Mind and heart are out of tune. Part 3. Collegium of Foreign Affairs
At the beginning of the summer of 1817, Griboyedov was summoned to the mansion on the Promenade des Anglais to present to his superiors. Among those enrolled in the service with him were graduates of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum - Alexander Pushkin, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, Alexander Gorchakov and others. On June 15, 1817, they were sworn in and signed under the decree of Peter I "On non-disclosure of official secrets" …
Part 1. Family
Part 2. Cornet of a non-shiny shelf
"Goodbye hour agreed" [1]
In St. Petersburg, Alexander Sergeevich, a frequenter of the backstage, clubs and parties, has affairs with the ladies of the half-world, actresses and dancers, not hesitating to seduce the wives of his comrades and publishers.
Once he lured the famous dancer of the Imperial Theater Avdotya Istomin, known for her free morals, to an apartment with a friend Zavadovsky, from whom he himself occupied free rooms. At that time, the ballerina was in a long relationship with one of the most distinguished imperial nobles, Vasily Sheremetev. Taking advantage of another disagreement with a jealous lover, Istomina decided to annoy him by having an affair with Zavadovsky.
The skin-visual woman does not differentiate men and indiscriminately spreads her pheromones to any male individual. The system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan helps to solve the riddle of the attractiveness and illegibility of an undeveloped skin-visual woman.
The adventures of the windy Avdotya Istomina, as expected, ended in a public scandal. Sheremetev challenged Zavadovsky to a duel. Soon the first of two fights took place, in which Alexander Griboyedov became Zavadovsky's second.
Vasily Sheremetev's second is the famous brute, an avid theatergoer, the future Decembrist Alexander Yakubovich. Known for his bragging rights, intrigue and dislike for Griboyedov, he stubbornly insisted on a duel between the seconds. A quarter duel was appointed. According to her rules, offended opponents were to shoot first, and then their assistants. During the first duel, the cavalry guard Sheremetev was seriously wounded and died a day later. The duel between Griboyedov and Yakubovich was postponed indefinitely.
“To the village, to my aunt, to the wilderness, to Saratov” [1]
Ever since the time of Peter I, "all challenges, fights and fights … the most severe" were prohibited and punished. The wayward duelists and their accomplices, so that others would be discouraged, were sent somewhere out of sight - even to the fashionable Caucasus at that time, which had been itching for decades with a "hot spot" on the body of Russia.
The Russian Emperor Alexander I personally ordered that Zavadovsky be driven back to London as soon as possible, from where he had previously appeared in Russia. Yakubovich was urgently exiled to the Caucasus. Nastasya Fyodorovna connected all her connections and secured a place for Alexander in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, hoping, probably, that he, too, would leave Russia and the duel business would be forgotten. No one got to his aunt in the village or in Saratov, and as a result, both seconds, Yakubovich and Griboyedov, ended up in the wilderness. Fate will push them again in Tiflis.
"I would be glad to serve …" [1]
At the beginning of the summer of 1817, Griboyedov was summoned to the mansion on the Promenade des Anglais to present to his superiors. Among those enrolled in the service with him were graduates of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum - Alexander Pushkin, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, Alexander Gorchakov and others. On June 15, 1817, they were sworn in and signed under the decree of Peter I "On non-disclosure of official secrets."
The Lyceum, opened in 1811, has always retained a humanitarian and legal orientation in the curriculum and was created as a state institution under the patronage of the Emperor and the College of Foreign Affairs. Few people know that from the lyceum students they prepared future employees of the diplomatic department and even counterintelligence officers.
To get acquainted with the basics of diplomacy, lyceum students were instructed to work with genuine diplomatic archival documents. They learned the art of encryption and decryption. According to some researchers, especially A. S. Pushkin. This page of his life to this day remains undisclosed, but it is known for certain that from the age of 14 he served in the College of Foreign Affairs, where he met his senior friend A. S. Griboyedov.
Especially trusted lyceum students "for gaining experience and practical knowledge" were assigned to the main archives of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. Among themselves, they jokingly called each other "archival youths."
Archival youths crowd
primly at Tanya
And
speak unfavorably about her among themselves." [2]
Such "archival youths" from the older generation included Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov, a musician, aspiring playwright and poet. Russian poetry of that period was dominated by "imitative ballads" borrowed from English and German mystical literature. Griboyedov, who speaks several foreign languages, also tries himself as a literary translator and author of daring critical articles.
Position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Alexander Sergeevich did not visit the service often, but the watch was around the clock. In Russia, the French language was used in office work; every employee of the College, including ordinary copyists, spoke it. But no one knew so many languages at the same time and as well as Griboyedov. Soon the whole ministry started talking about the young polyglot official. In the service, he himself translated little, but willingly helped colleagues in the preparation of official documents, surprising colleagues with precise expressions and phrases in German, Italian, French or English.
At one of the morning receptions of the employees, Count Kapodistrias, a Greek by birth, a rival of Nesselrode as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, addressed Griboyedov. He asked: "Does Alexander know Greek?" The aspiring diplomat answered in the negative, but made conclusions and promised to fill this gap. The conversation was public and the count hinted at the need to learn Greek.
Griboyedov's subtle mind perceived the hidden meaning of things. He immediately understood what was required of him. The question of Count Kapodistrias could only mean that soon in Greece, which rebelled against the Turkish yoke, significant political changes would occur and Russian diplomats would have a lot of work in Athens.
“Farewell, now I'm leaving the yard: where do you think? Study in Greek. I am going crazy with this language, every single day from the 12th to the 4th I study, and I am already making great progress. For me, it is not difficult at all”[3].
A few weeks later, Count Kapodistrias, who did not please the Russian emperor with his adherence to Orthodoxy, was removed from service in the College of Foreign Affairs. He was succeeded by Count Nesselrode, an apologist for Catholicism and a great friend of Austria.
"Fate, naughty minx" [1]
Alexander was one of the few who spoke German well. Ivan Danilovich Petrozilius, a teacher of language and literature, frightened him from childhood with scary stories from German books about mystical horrors, the walking dead and the gloomy darkness of the night. Fears traumatize the child's visual vector, and could not but affect the psyche of little Griboyedov. Visual fear forever remained in his unconscious, and the scenes of Sheremetev's death haunted the impressionable Alexander Sergeevich in nightmares all his life.
Shortly before his departure to Persia, A. S. Griboyedov could not resist the temptation to visit the house at the Five Corners in St. Petersburg, where the famous fortune-teller lived in the capital. "Black Widow" - this was the name of the milliner who once came to Russia from Germany with her husband, a priest. Widowed and left without a livelihood, in addition to a fashionable salon, she also opened an esoteric one. Contemporaries who knew the "black widow" claimed that at one time Pushkin, Lermontov and even Alexander I visited her. The spectators were eager to look into the future, but instead of fame, the "black widow" predicted difficult life trials for them. “The other day I went to Kirkhovsha to wonder what would happen to me,” Griboyedov wrote to his friend Begichev in 1817. “She knows no more about it than me. Such nonsense is lying … She was talking about some terrible death in a foreign land,I don't even want to remember … And why did I only show her my hands?"
Or Caesar, or nothing [4]
Six months later, Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov was summoned to the Asian Department of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, where he was informed that his request for the requested diplomatic position had been granted. However, he can choose between Tehran in Persia and Philadelphia in America.
After the scandalous duel, one could not count on a place in the Russian mission somewhere in Paris or Vienna. America, diplomatically, was a dead end. It was impossible to distinguish oneself there. On reflection, he agrees to Persia and receives the appointment of the secretary of the Russian diplomatic mission in Tabriz.
“It has never happened to me in my life,” recalled A. S. Sturdza, - to be such a close eyewitness when the sufferer himself chooses his own mysterious lot."
The Collegium also knew about financial matters and the son's refusal of the inheritance, no matter how they were hidden by Nastasya Fedorovna Griboyedova. The olfactory Count Nesselrode understood the skin ambitions of his subordinate, so he promised Alexander Griboyedov the title of collegiate assessor and a large salary. In addition, in order to sweeten the bitterness of parting with St. Petersburg, the Minister of Foreign Affairs hinted to the poet and musician that, being far from his superiors, he could continue to write his wonderful plays, and "in solitude, improve his talents."
By that time, some of Griboyedov's comedies were already known to the Petersburg public. Nesselrode was right. It was from his first mission to Central Asia that Alexander Sergeevich would bring sketches of the only great comedy "Woe from Wit", which made him famous throughout Russia, putting him on a par with the classics of Russian literature.
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List of references:
- A. S. Griboyedov. "Woe from Wit"
- A. S. Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin"
- Letter to A. S. Griboyedov to friend Katenin
- The motto of Cesare Borgia, a politician of the 15th century.
